PLATFORM EXCLUSIVES | MARKETING TERMINOLOGY

Early on, I approached one of our Marketing VPs with a proposal to change the way we described exclusive games and content on our platform, moving from the fairly static “PlayStation Exclusive” to something that sounded more like a customer benefit than a business deal.

The result was a hierarchy of Only On PlayStation for platform exclusives and First On PlayStation for timed exclusives. These still appear in both print and video ads for every game they apply to.

PLAYSTATION   |   STYLE GUIDE AND TOV

Design and UX were still fledgling disciplines when I joined up, but everyone agreed the the robotic tone of the PlayStation 3 era didn't fit the brand. PlayStation 4 was an opportunity to reset and apply real UX principles.

Naturally, stakeholders across four divisions on three continents had opinions about what PlayStation's voice was, and they all differed.

I took on all the material they'd created, found commonalities, and added my own vision of what PlayStation should sound like. I established Brand Pillars that bubbled up to the 10,000-foot PlayStation master-brand, and Pillar Goals to execute against. I defined the reaction we wanted our messaging to have, and the strategies for creating those reactions.

Then I built a coalition of support around it, and sold that vision to stakeholders in Japan, England, and America.

Once approved, we literally wrote the book on how to write the PlayStation voice and trained all our writers, new and old, how to do it.

That's when the real work started.

PLAYSTATION 4 UI   |   FUNCTION MENU

Style guide in place, we audited what was already out there, took PS3-style technical writing, and transformed it into UX-centric messaging.

PLAYSTATION 4 UI   |   social posts

Core to everything we did: Speaking directly to the player's wants and needs, and using that to drive engagement. And it worked.

I then validated everything through a series of UT sessions. Users preferred the brand TOV 4-to-1 over the old technical style.

"I like it because it doesn't come off as mean."

"Everything in life is robotic. Why should a thing I look forward to, to let go and relax, be the same?"

"I've simply had my fill of technical speak for a lifetime."

PLAYSTATION PLUS   |  UNSUBSCRIBE FLOW

PS Plus is a major revenue generator, but our research showed that most Plus members who unsubscribed didn't know what they were getting for their money. We proposed a new flow with sticky messaging that educated members on lesser-known features while encouraging them to keep using the service. The result:

19.4% increase in members who decided to keep their subscription.

11.2% increase in members who re-subscribed manually.

PLAYSTATION 4   |   WHAT'S NEW FEED

I also applied TOV to improve engagement in our social features as a whole, using fairly easy messaging tricks. Direct engagement in our What's New feed increased by 60% in the first month, with 40% of that new UGC being "rich" content (a post with media included). This far exceeded our project KPIs.

Ps PLUS   |   FREE-GAME OVERLAYS

Plus members get free games every month, but adoption wasn't as high as we liked - and research showed it was a benefit that tied in directly to retention.

Under my direction, my team and I created a series of overlay "interrupts" with messaging that sold the games, back-of-box style. These are the three I personally wrote.

Double the engagement level of the all-time record holder (Rocket League).

A/B testing was ended early to go into full production due to overwhelming success.